So the first thing to consider is that secured loans are normally only available to you if you own your own home. If you have a mortgage on it already like most of us the amount you could borrow on a secured loan will depend on what you’re left with if you take the agreed value of the house and take away the balance owed on the mortgage. What’s left is called the equity and you’ll usually be able to borrow up to a certain percentage of that. What percentage will be set by the lender and is subject to all the other considerations like your income and track record.

So what are the pros and cons of secured loans and are they right for you? Well to take the good news first, a loan secured on your property is going to be cheaper in terms of interest than a personal loan. Because the lender has the added security of a charge on your house his money is less at risk so he won’t feel the need to charge quite so much in interest. In fact the cheapest form of secured loan is always going to be a further advance on your existing mortgage if you can get it because your lender already knows more about you than you do or so it seems and you’re already on their books. You should always try that first.

If you don’t want to go to your existing lender or maybe the purpose you want the loan for doesn’t fit their rules then secured loans from other sources will be what you’re looking at for the more substantial amounts.

So we’ve established that secured loans can carry lower interest charges. What else is good? Well you can usually borrow larger sums this way than you can by personal loan. More often than not you can get a much longer repayment term than you could with a personal loan. Not usually as long as your first mortgage but not that far short if you want it. That means of course that for a given amount borrowed your monthly payments will be less and that of course is a good argument for going down this route.

OK that all sounds pretty good so what’s the catch? Well the main drawback is the fact that if you don’t keep up the repayments you’ll probably have your home re-possessed. Actually if you’ve got your sums right at the beginning that’s unlikely to happen unless you become unemployed or your health fails and you can’t work for a long time. The same applies to your first mortgage of course so you take out insurance to cover against these misfortunes don’t you? Well you can do the same with your second or third mortgage and you should do so of course.

It can take longer to set up a loan secured on your property and there will be legal fees and set up charges. However these can often be added to the loan so you don’t have to pay them up front. Even with these costs it’s probably still cheaper than a personal loan.

There are lots of lenders competing for your business and some may pay the set up costs for you. Your best bet is to consult an expert. You can’t beat getting a mortgage broker, such as TheHome Loan Shop for example, to find you the deal that gives you the best value for money.

For more information regarding secured loans, loan, homeowner loans, home loans & personal loans please visit: www.thehomeloanshop.co.uk

“How did it ever get like this?” We wail. Well it’s easy isn’t it? We start off with a mortgage on our house that we can just about cope with but there isn’t much left over at the end of the month for all the things we want. It’s not just the big things like the new telly or upgrading the car. There’s the petrol bills, the takeaways, the presents to buy at Christmas and birthdays, meals out and so it goes on. Well, we want to live a bit don’t we?

Anyway, what with the personal loans and the credit cards we find it’s all getting too much. There’s always too much month left and not enough salary! There should be enough money with what we earn for goodness sake, where does it all go? If you can honestly say none of that sounds familiar either you’re unusually organised or very lucky.

Right then what’re you going to do about it? Well you could sell your house and buy somewhere cheaper. That’ll probably take months though and you probably won’t be happy for long and what about the kids schools anyway? OK maybe not that then. Have you thought about debt consolidation? Chances are you’ve got some equity in your house which is the difference between what your house is worth and what you owe on the mortgage. You could use that for debt consolidation. Not directly of course but by getting a loan secured against the house to pay off all those personal loans and credit card balances.

It’ll only work if you’ve got enough equity in the house of course but usually you can borrow more by way of a secured loan like that than you can with another personal loan and you get much longer to pay it back. That means lower monthly repayments and the interest rate will probably be lower too. Certainly it’ll be lower than on credit cards anyway. Of course if you don’t keep up the repayments on a secured loan, just like with your first mortgage, you could face repossession so be sure to include insurance against unemployment and sickness as well as death.

For more information regarding secured loans, debt consolidation, loan, homeowner loans, home loans & personal loans please visit: www.thehomeloanshop.co.uk

Getting a mortgage in 2008 can be done the old fashioned way by calling on one building society or bank after another until you find one that’s happy to let you have what you’re looking for on terms that seem reasonable. That will work but it can be time consuming and, especially if you’re not quite the model borrower, it can be frustrating into the bargain. Talking of bargains you can guarantee you won’t get the best possible deal that way either.

Your broker will gather together all the necessary information about you and about the property you’ve set your heart on. Armed with that information the broker will search the whole of the market and that’s a whole lot bigger than you might have thought. The search will include lots of potential lenders that you’ve probably never heard of. Using the magic of modern technology this whole operation will take less time than it would take you to call on or even telephone the half dozen or so High street lenders you think of yourself. The broker’s specialist knowledge is there for you to use.

In this way your broker will get you the best deal possible and that means you’ll get your funds at the best possible rate. That’s great but what if your situation’s not straightforward? Well that’s all the more reason to use the right broker. Do you have a poor credit rating? Are you self employed? Those can be real problems when you’re trying to arrange mortgages yourself. The skilled broker knows just the lenders to go to in these situations and still get you a good deal.

Whether you need a straightforward loan to buy your next home or you’re looking to buy property overseas or property to buy to let the broker knows how to find just what you need at the right sort of rate. It’s a much more complex subject today than in years gone by which means you really do need the specialist help of an experienced broker.

Just as the broker uses the wonders of technology to find your mortgage so you can to contact your broker. You can do it online. You and your broker may need to meet and discuss various matters over a coffee but most of the work can usually be done online.

As always the choice is yours. You can visit a number of possible lenders, filling in application forms for each possibly being turned down by some for various reasons not always stated. Then find yourself landed with a deal at an expensive rate of interest or, even worse, still be without a mortgage at the end of it all. Or you could just give all your details once to a good broker then sit back and let them do all the work for you and come up with a deal that’ll beat anything you could have found. Is there really any contest?

For more information regarding re-mortgage, mortgages, mortgages, interest rates & homes Please visit: www.stirlingmortgages.com

The people who are looking for BMV purchases are most likely to be those seeking to buy to let. Over the last two or three years buying property to let has become increasingly popular with investors. It’s easy to see why this should be so. Despite occasional dips or even slumps in the market, over a longer period of time property values have always moved upwards, sometimes very slowly and at other times alarmingly rapidly. So as a long term investment property has a lot in its favour. Investment property rented out to other people produces an income to pay for its maintenance and should produce a profit as well. Anyone wanting to do this will be looking for a BMV deal to maximise the profit.

If you’re able to lay your hands on large sums of money of your own to invest in property that’s easy but hold on a minute. Your capital’s going to be tied up for many years to come. Then again you may have plenty of income but not much available capital but you still want to invest profitably for the future.

In either case the answer’s a mortgage, after all the rented property’s going to provide enough income to cover the regular payments and the growth in value of the house or houses should more than cover the interest and still leave you with plenty of profit.

You probably won’t get an ordinary mortgage on a property that’s not going to be your home. That’s why you need a BMV mortgage. You may need to shop around a bit to find such a deal. Forget the usual High Street lenders, you need a specialist broker. Not all mortgage brokers handle this kind of business. There are a few who have the specialist knowledge in the field and you need to make sure you find one. This is going to be a big investment for you over a period of many years so you need to be absolutely confident that the broker you go to when looking at BMV mortgages is one of the experts.

In today’s complex market popping into your local branch office of a well known building society or bank is probably the worst possible way of finding any kind of mortgage if you want to get the best value for your hard earned money, and who doesn’t? One thing’s for sure you’d be hard pushed to find the deal you need by yourself. That’s true of any mortgage really. You do need a broker.

In the case of a BMV mortgage it’s the only way and it’s worth repeating that it must be a broker with the right sort of specialised knowledge and experience at his or her fingertips, unless you happen to be an expert in the field yourself which few of us are. Handled properly at the outset your BMV investment should look after you very well in the future.

For more information regarding bmv mortgages, below market value, Re-mortgage, mortgages, mortgages, interest rates & homes please visit: www.stirlingmortgages.com

I have written previously about how people are attracted to live in this mid England county for a number of reasons including its accessibility to two major cities (Birmingham and London), its access to two of the UKs areas of outstanding natural beauty the Chalfonts and the Cotswolds or its historic cities of Oxford and Banbury. Well whatever the reason it would appear that for many people Oxfordshire seems to offer the lifestyle they want as well as offering a good investment opportunity.

Research by Knight Frank on Oxfordshire million pound plus prime property market demonstrates that Oxfordshire is attracting professional families with the head of the household being aged between 35 and 55 years of age and of European or British descent. The city of Oxford itself is seeing high growth fuelled by its strong reputation for good schools and some super-prime locations are beginning to appear.

The price levels within these super-prime locations are now advancing well ahead of other highly desirable areas and widely reported hot spots in the UK.

A case in point is a property within Central Oxford whose details were released to the open market this week. The 4000 square foot property is commanding a price per square foot value of £783.

In comparison a similar property in the London commuter suburb of Ealing famous for its film studio, and village feel is for sale at £595 per square foot, and a further comparison is the leafy suburb of Branksome Park which neighbours the infamous Sandbanks where a property at a similar price level is available for sale at £528 per square foot.

The increase in prices has been driven by a supply-demand imbalance created by the increase in overseas buyers coming to the area to work in the growing local industries centred around the technology parks.

At Elite Property Search we have access to in excess of £150 million worth of privately available within Oxfordshire. This privately available property is not registered with a selling agent or openly marketed and can only be accessed by contacting the Elite Property Search country house team.

For further information please contact 0207 060 2338 or visit our website: www.elitepropertysearch.com